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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

> The reason for this correlation is something this survey can’t answer. “Maybe unschooling promotes creativity, or maybe dispositionally creative people or families are more likely to choose unschooling,” Gray says. “It’s probably a little bit of both.”

Successful "unschooling" is a pretty privileged experience... they have to have at least one parent who is dedicated to their education and have parents who have the skills to guide their education.

There is also a huge selection bias in the survey; they don't call kids who have a bad experience with this "unschoolers"... they call them drop outs.

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Never heard of this Unschool term, but I was certainly Unschooled for my entire life until 18 when I went to community college and spent 4 years learning how to be a person around other people. I ended up getting a MA in the humanities, but my education led me to believe that my Unschooling as we're calling it now, was neglect. I suffered a great deal, and have tried to discourage homeschooling to any of my friends now that I'm in my 30s.

The article addresses this; if your parents had kept you out of school with the explicit goal of guiding you through self-directed study, and actually followed through with that the entire time, you likely would have had a better experience.

Neglect is just, unfortunately, neglect, and I'm sorry you had to go through that.

I really hope you won't continue discouraging homeschooling for your friends' kids. It can clearly be a great experience for a child, if the parents are dedicated to putting in the work to make it so.

Unschooling is a relatively uncommon form of homeschooling. They are definitely not synonyms. Unschooling can be defined differently by different people, but it tends to emphasize the Romantic philosophical notion of people being naturally hungry to learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it.

Most homeschoolers consider unschooling no better than letting a child choose what to eat for dinner. Candy instead of veggies? Sure, if that's what you want, your body knows best! Most homeschoolers (parents) are far more deliberate in their choice of curriculum and the need for children to get used to spending some of their time doing what they need to do, not just always doing what they feel like doing. It's just that, if done right, the "doing what you have to do" time is actually useful work, not just "draw a picture of each science word and be creative!" tedious, time-wasting busywork. And with this increased efficiency (if it works), kids can end up with more time to do what they feel like than kids in regular school. That doesn't make it "unschooling", though, because that's the dessert, not the whole meal.

Unschooling doesn't imply a lack of involvement but rather a lack of structured teaching.

Unschooled adults I've met all had very busy social lives as children.

Your comment seems like a variation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman. The parent commenter says "I personally experienced X and it was not great for me" and then you say "what you experienced could not have been X, because X is always great for people."

I don't think this holds true here. If parents neglect a child, they're not going to do well, full stop. "Neglect" is what the parent specifically called his experience. Unschooling cannot be successful in an environment where the parent is neglecting the child; the article even addresses this with three examples from their study where the parents quickly failed in their task to guide their child's education, self-directed or not.

> The parent commenter says "I personally experienced X and it was not great for me"

No. The parent commenter clearly mentioned “Never heard of this Unschool term”.

The parent commenter then went on to talk about their experience with a different topic - essentially lack of schooling.

Just because the names sound related doesn’t mean they are the same thing.

I don't think nostrebored said beer_cub's experience could not have been unschooling. nostrebored instead said that some unschooling is different than beer_cub's experience, and gave the anecdote that everyone nostrebored met had a different experience than beer_cub.

I've never commented before so I had to make an account for this. Hopefully it doesn't get flagged, but that's the risk of lurking I guess. The rest of this post is anecdotal and perhaps fairly unusual, so forgive the lack of citations.

I'm 1995 I moved from Canada to the United States. Up until then I had been in the public school system since kindergarten. After 1995, I was "unschooled" from late 1995 to 2001, and I have to take exception to your idea that it is a privileged experience. I'll spare you the details but the summary is that my mom was more worried about the physical and mental abuse I encountered in public school (U.S. 5th grade, around 10 years old average and the first year of "middle school") at the hands of my supposed peers, primarily based on physical appearance and "foreign" + "new kid" status.

So after this very brief stint in American public school I was told by my mom that I would be doing "homeschooling" instead of getting my face rearranged for being white (whoops, spoiler).

Interesting fact: my mom had no idea how to homeschool. We had food stamps, sometimes, but usually it was just living off of combinations of flour, water, and salt. She became "religious" in order to get food boxes and a hope of networking to get work. We lived in rooms most of you would consider closets.

Her version of "unschooling" was to tell me that I need to learn math, science, history, and English, that way I could get a job when I grow up. She walked with me to the nearest library, and got me a library card, and told me (paraphrased due to memory): "read until you figure out what to do" her tone implying that I should learn the topics she mentioned.

I did. I also worked; I didn't have a computer at home (yet) but I knew how to use VCRs to record cable, and I could move furniture (even as a 10-11 year old), so my mom's church network got me a few dollars a week to save for myself. I saved up and bought a Commodore 64 from Goodwill after a big fight about "useless shit."

I taught myself BASIC, at first from a library book that showed how to draw Christmas trees and math problems (original leetcode I guess), then from the help files. When I wasn't doing that, I was reading science fiction. Absolutely no educational material.

My mom soon made enough to get a 386 Acer PC on credit, and I learned QBASIC with its infinitely more helpful help system. The computer had a modem and by late 1995 my mom had learned about ISPs from her friends at church. She called the owner of the local ISP and essentially traded me for internet access; I would go to their "office" (a repurposed shipping container) to answer tech support emails, and at home we could dial in for free.

This is where "unschooling" truly began. I had Microsoft Encarta that came with the PC, I had a book called Internet For Dummies, and I had virtually unlimited access to information.

I also ate once every 2 days, and it was rice and shitty meat more often than not.

I won't say where I am today, but I will say that it all worked out for the both of us.

Hope that helps someone.

> I also ate once every 2 days, and it was rice and shitty meat more often than not.I won't say where I am today, but I will say that it all worked out for the both of us. Hope that helps someone.

Your story is exactly why I always talk to my non-tech friends about how critical the Internet was for those of us that could learn on our own at a young age, and its Life defining experiences like this that make this place worth coming back to.

In moments of struggle we find out who and what we really are, and while my situation was no where near as difficult as yours, for many of us the Internet and the access to all of the information you could take came to be how we made sense of what was otherwise an insurmountable challenge due to circumstance(s) beyond one's control.

If you have time, consider reading Permanent Record by Edward Snowden, the way he describes his experiences is so typical of the People who I have come to have a near instant bond/connection with as they often have a similar story as your own.

Thanks for sharing your story. I can relate to some of your experiences, although you definitely had it tougher than me.

She called the owner of the local ISP and essentially traded me for internet access; I would go to their "office" (a repurposed shipping container) to answer tech support emails, and at home we could dial in for free.

This is where "unschooling" truly began. I had Microsoft Encarta that came with the PC, I had a book called Internet For Dummies, and I had virtually unlimited access to information.

This was a breakthrough moment for me also. The local ISP offered shell or SLIP accounts, but SLIP was more expensive so I had a shell account. Mosaic was still buggy back then and it required the Win32s extensions to run on 16-bit Windows so I didn't bother. Gopher and FTP were the centers of my world.

My book was Navigating the Internet by Richard Gibbs.

Do you ever wonder if you would've ended up in the same place if you'd had an easier or more privileged upbringing? I'm convinced that most of my hardships growing up were essential factors in how I ended up. If I came up today with high speed Internet and a comfortable middle class life with a new smartphone every two years and a computer that I don't have to share with four other siblings, I might not have found the things that I'm so passionate about that I'll do anything just to pursue them.

This is such a unique story, thank you for sharing

Thanks for posting, Jimmygrapes.

Beautiful story.

Exactly. Not every child requires a formal education. Every child needs access to it. Most kids can't feasibly be homeschooled.

Unschooling doesn't require homeschooling, there are many alternative (free/democratic) schools - in Berlin (where I live) alone there are about a dozen. It does not require more resources to run than a "normal" school, it's mostly that most parents don't want it for their kids (or are unaware of it).

I do not understand: what are we talking about? Is "unschooling" in your interpretation just "not following a fix curriculum" ?

If that's the case, and you still go to a school while unschooled (which seems oxymoronic), why would there be issues with socialization?

It is not about my interpretation. Please search the web for unschooling (you can e.g. read the wikipedia article[0]) and you will very quickly learn what is meant by that & why there is no oxymoron.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

I did that before posting, but the wikipedia page says

> unschooling is often considered a subset of homeschooling

And further down

> Unschooling is a form of home education, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school.

which is why I asked what your interpretation of it is.

Yeah sorry I guess that article is a bit confused - the first sentence is good IMO:

    an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen
    activities as a primary means for learning.

The salient point is that kids want to learn on their own & you should try to see what interests them and direct them to productive ways to learn more/support them instead of selecting the subjects for them. The free schools I know do not have a fixed curriculum but provide various classes that the kids can elect from. The teachers are also open to suggestions and ask the kids what they want to learn/do.

They have no grades & all kids (generally grades 1 to 6) are together in mixed-aged groups. There are also far fewer kids per adult but that may just be a function of these being private schools.

So there is no requirement to do that at home but I guess that is the most common form in the Anglophone countries (in German speaking ones it's the other way around).

You should learn what unschooling means. It’s not about curriculum or not attending any classes. I suggest Ivan Illich’s book “Deschooling Society.” As long as your frame of reference is modern formal schools you can only interpret alternatives from that perspective.

Correct. Also that was partially my point that there is no problem with socialization in free schools as kids attend with other kids doing the same.

Not supported by numerous studies. Not supported by thousands of years of history either.

Which studies are you referring to that argue for the abolition of public education? Again, clearly homeschooling can work. Equally clearly it can't work for everyone.

FWIW: how were literacy rates during those thousands of years where peasants were responsible for schooling their own kids? And symmetrically: which culture was it where the members of the literate aristocracy schooled their own children instead of using tutors/monasteries/etc...? That argument is just silly on its face.

I'm not referring to studies arguing for abolishing public education. I'm referring to studies that show homeschooled and unschooled kids can get an education without school. Formal school is one path that works more or less most of the time. It's not the only path. Homeschooled and even unschooled kids do manage to get into universities and graduate at a rate comparable to or higher than public schooled kids.

The reason "homeschooling can't work for everyone" is mainly economic and social, not because public schools have a magic technique for teaching. Many parents need schools for day care so they can work, and many parents don't have the patience, time, or interest to help their kids educate themselves. Public schools have the same problem at a much larger scale: plenty of kids drop out or graduate with poor educations, for a variety of social and economic reasons. As I mentioned already the number one reason teachers give for poor student performance is lack of parental involvement. It should be obvious that parents who choose to directly take charge of their child's education have shown their commitment to parental involvement in that process.

For most of human history formal education didn't exist, and literacy was not a requirement for functioning in society. Children learned necessary skills from their parents and the wider community. If they needed to learn carpentry they apprenticed with a carpenter. Elites could afford to educate their children, but those educations were more for maintaining social status (dancing, fencing, manners, music, poetry, etc.). Education in the modern sense was not available nor particularly valued or needed until, well, modern times -- post-industrial revolution. Compulsory education is even more recent, though Plato advocated compulsory education for social control (as opposed to valuing education for its own sake).

If you're referring to the aristocracy sending their children to monasteries or tutors, you should look into that history. One of the main reasons some children ended up studying at monasteries or nunneries was primogeniture, in effect getting "extra" children out of the way without making them learn a trade. Aristocratic children were schooled in necessary skills (skills we today would not accept as a well-rounded education) not because they would ever have to get a job, but so they could make a good marriage with another aristocrat. Pretty much by definition aristocrats don't have to work so education was a luxury and social currency.

Homeschooling doesn't mean the parents do everything. Homeschoolers typically engage tutors, mentors, classes, etc. I couldn't teach my kids everything, they had tutors for things like music, other adults for subjects I don't know enough about, classes at colleges as they got older. It's possible to pick and choose, lots of ways to learn that don't fit into the mold of formal schooling. Most adults will admit when pressed that they learned their most valuable life and job skills outside of formal school. You only need about 50 hours to teach a child to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Once they can read they can direct their own learning with some guidance. Kids learn very naturally on their own. School is one environment for accomplishing that but it has a lot of baggage and not a great success rate (except in terms of providing taxpayer-subsidized day care and lessons in conformity). Other learning environments also work.

Unschooling at its core means teaching children how to learn on their own, a skill more valuable than any subject in a formal curriculum. And that's a skill schools actively discourage, because it would interfere with the whole program.

You're not arguing with me, or the people upthread then. Here's my case:

Public school is a critically important piece of social infrastructure that should be available to all, everywhere, irrespective of anyone's feelings about homeschooling.

I don't think you disagree, so yay.

Education should be available to everyone, agreed.

Public school is compulsory, and not necessarily about providing an education. Whether everyone is entitled to free/subsidized daycare that may also throw off some education is open to debate. To me the important point is to untangle formal compulsory public schools from education, because although they overlap somewhat they aren’t the same thing.

I think parents should have the right to homeschool or unschool their kids as long as they aren’t endangering their children. Personally I think homeschooling to enforce religious indoctrination is close to abuse, but I’m reluctant to force parents away from that. The majority of homeschoolers in the USA are religious homeschoolers. They also fight the legal battles for homeschooler rights, which us secular homeschoolers benefit from. The state is reluctant to give up control of our children, as every homeschooling parent knows. And that has nothing to do with education no matter how it gets presented.

I know that homeschooling and unschooling are impractical for many parents, which is regrettable, because they only have the option of putting their kids in school and hoping for the best. Parents who have the time, patience, and interest in getting the most out of public schools — those whom teachers call “engaged” parents — could probably dispense with school altogether.

for thousands of years the majority of people didn't know how to read, I am not sure that's an argument for kids not needing access to schools.

For most of human history people either had nothing to read, or they didn’t need to read to grow into productive adults. Instead they would listen to stories and learn skills from parents and other adults in their community. I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education.

I would agree that reading is a fundamental skill in modern society. Children can learn to read young and very quickly, with just a little help. I could read books at 4 (I was not unschooled or homeschooled, but I wanted to read). My kids learned to read before 5 and it wasn’t that hard to teach them. We kept lots of books on all kinds of subjects in the house and if our kids wanted to learn more about something we got more books or took them to the library. If they got very interested we found mentors, tutors, other kids (of all ages) with the same interest.

> I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education.

Which was a claim that no one made.

I agree with this. It should have measured the correlation between parents' degree of formal education, attitude to raising their kids.

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